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P R O F I L E | G E O R G E N A K A S H I M A
T
okyo proved particularly pivotal for Nakashima.
He secured a place in the architectural office
of Antonin Raymond, who posted Nakashima
to India to supervise the construction of a dormitory
at an Indian ashram. In the process of helming the
project for four years, Nakashima became a disciple of
the community and a prescriber of its teachings. Says
Mira: "He intended to stay there the rest of his life,"
and may well have had the world not lurched toward
war. But as it did, Nakashima left India to reunite
with his family in the United States, and set up a
small furniture workshop in Seattle, in the basement
of a boys' club. He even secured a commission from a
prominent cosmetics executive.
When the war reached American shores,
Nakashima, his wife Marion and a young Mira
were sent to the Minidoka relocation camp in
Idaho. To that point, Nakashima had worked mostly
with machine tools, but while incarcerated he
apprenticed himself to a Japanese carpenter, whom
he affectionately called "his teacher," and refined
his craft with Japanese joinery and traditional
techniques. A sponsorship by Nakashima's former
employer, Antonin Raymond, secured early release
for the Nakashimas and they left for Raymond's
farm in New Hope. Until Nakashima was able to
purchase three acres of what is now an 8.8 parcel
with farm labor in exchange for the land, the family
lived in primitive conditions, "in an old Army tent,"
remembers Mira, while her father "built the shop,
then the house, and then building after building."
After the birth of her brother, "he built more."
